Something Like a Wolf

It was commonly said, in hushed tones after discreet looks around, that something like a wolf inhabited those woods.

Well, clearly, I thought then, alone in my tent. Listening to that howling. Call me a skeptic, but I didn’t think I’d actually be lucky enough to prove the damn thing. But there I was, recording every one of those unearthly howls with my state of the art equipment, hyping myself up to brave the rain and cold wind, and, once and for all, catch the thing on video.

I’ve spent a lot of time around all sorts of canines in my day, worked at a wolf sanctuary in fact, and those howls should not have been coming out of physical vocal cords. They were like a whole new genre of sound. Not analogue, not digital, sure as hell not any animal I’d seen, and I couldn’t have heard it wrong. I couldn’t have.

I unzipped the tent and was shivering.

I blinked several times to try to see better in the near pitch black, which obviously did not work.

The moon peaked through the clouds.

Right.

Follow the sound.

And while following that awful sound through those dense, dark woods, I was ever so careful to not make a sound. Wouldn’t wanna scare the thing off, you know? No light, no sound.

It seemed as though any other creatures that may have been present were taking a cue. Nothing wanted to reveal itself anywhere in the vicinity of whatever wolf-like thing was waiting deeper in those crowding, damp pines, and I started to think that I could even smell it on the air, or at least smell something that did not belong. Fungal, almost.

But, as I started to get to where I thought I should see the thing any second now, glowing eyes or glistening rain-wet fur in my just-waiting-to-be-used flashlight, the howling stopped. Did I make too much noise?

I reached a clearing.

The rain was calming again, but the fog-obscured moonlight was such that when I had been surrounded by trees, I could just see the edges of branches, while now out in the clearing it was pitch black, no moon in sight. As I said I had been avoiding my flashlight because I didn’t want to make my presence known in any way whatsoever. But something about the clearing compelled me.

I held out my flashlight, and pressed the button.

There was a man.

He was naked, and limping.

Dripping wet from all the rain.

I could faintly hear him groaning.

Without thinking better I shouted, “Hey! Are you… okay?”

He didn’t seem to notice me.

A little louder. “Hey! Do you need help?”

He just kept pacing. That awful limp.

I was terrified to approach.

So I didn’t.

Eventually I called the cops, and they said they’d send a guy, and I should go home.

Eventually again, still so fucking worried, you understand, I did go back to my tent.

I don’t know if the cops ever showed up.

There was a horrible smell all around my campsite, like burning rubber mixed in with severely expired Chinese food, and I couldn’t bear it, and I admit I was unaccountably distraught, and jittery, and I admit I packed up and left.

All I have to show for the whole thing are some recordings of faint, ambiguous howling sounds, and a video of a naked guy limping around. But I can’t get it off my mind.

It all felt like a brief window into something that people like us are never supposed to see, and I hope you never have to see a thing like that.

Like some horrid thing that’s always just out of sight, yet every bit as much a part of our world as we are.

I can’t shake the feeling I should have done something to help him.